by Ward Larsen
Jamal ran toward the pen, but before he could reach it the bull did much the same, falling into the dirt with its great legs twitching wildly. Jamal skidded to a stop in the dirt. He was suddenly very afraid—and not for his herd.
He looked guardedly at the open doorway. “Musa! Where are you?”
Again, no reply.
He moved warily toward the doorway. Before he’d gone two steps, Musa appeared. His son staggered into the threshold. He put one shoulder heavily to the earthen wall, then collapsed.
Jamal ran and kneeled beside his son. There was vomit on the front of his robe, spittle coming from his mouth. It looked as if every muscle in his body had gone rigid, and he was sweating profusely. Then Jamal noticed his eyes. They seemed vacant, staring blankly skyward, the pupils no more than pinpoints.
“Musa, can you hear me?” he said desperately.
There was no reaction, no recognition at all. Musa’s breathing was choppy and shallow, gasping for air but somehow not finding it. Jamal cradled his son’s head in his hands, felt the rigid muscles in his neck. Behind him the bull gave a horrid wail. Jamal couldn’t take his eyes off his son. He wondered what affliction could befall both men and cattle, what could seize them so quickly. He peered into the shadowed recesses of the room and saw walking sticks, spent water bottles, a few empty crates. Then at the back, something shiny … two heavy metallic bottles.
Musa’s gaze became fixed, stilled in a terrible forever stare. “No!” Jamal cried out, cradling his son’s head. “Musa!” Tears began streaming down his cheeks. Then, through his grief, Jamal felt a terrible aura of foreboding.
Sweat began dripping down his face, and there was an awful constriction in his chest. The hands holding his dead son’s face went rigid, and his arms seemed to seize. He fell helplessly onto his side, his vision blurring. He felt the warmth of urine spreading across one leg. But his chest … that was the worst. A pain like nothing he’d ever experienced. Jamal felt like he was being crushed, some unseen weight expelling every bit of air from his lungs.
He lay on the ground, trying to focus. Trying to breathe.
Then he saw it … coming at him like a nightmare.
It approached from the direction of the tree, and was vaguely in the shape of a man—arms and legs, a body of sorts, but all of it bloated inside what looked like a great yellow balloon. Where the face should have been was a wide glass plate, and behind that, perhaps, the visage of a man. Or am I only seeing things?
Jamal retched once, then again, a spastic expulsion that made breathing more difficult than ever. When his eyes opened again the apparition was closer, only a few steps away. The creature came to a stop and stood over him. Watching and waiting. Jamal reached out a hand, pleading for help. The figure didn’t move, and for the first time Jamal heard what sounded like flowing air, an in-and-out stream that was almost mechanical. It seemed to mock his own seized lungs.
The world began to go dim.
His last vision was of the figure kneeling down next to him. Jamal felt two slight stings—first one leg, then the other. Against so much agony it hardly registered. He shuddered and drew one final breath. Then his body racked violently and the world went black.
THIRTY-FOUR
The midday sun seemed to beat down through a magnifying glass as they made their way across Damascus. The car was serviceable, but had seen better days, and the air conditioner showed no signs of life. To Slaton it was less an issue of comfort than security—it forced them to keep the windows open.
There were sirens in the distance, but distance was the operative word—that meant safety, preoccupation. He was intensely attuned to their surroundings: every nearby car noted, every intersection approached with caution. He’d already confirmed that everyone’s phones were off. They’d so far seen no roadblocks; Slaton guessed those would eventually appear inside the city, but not before the perimeter was sealed. Given the scale of battle he’d begun, it wouldn’t take long.
Kravchuk was still driving, Slaton riding semi-automatic. They made halting progress, moving for a time before shifting into cover, ducking into parking areas and alleys. They avoided main arteries wherever possible. With the traffic at a crescendo, and moving with utmost caution, it took nearly two hours to reach their destination.
“How much farther?” he asked.
“We are almost there,” replied Salma.
He half turned and saw her eyes reaching up the street. Naji remained silent at her side, his three-wheeled toy truck clutched to his chest. They were winding through a dated residential neighborhood, somewhere on the distant south side of town. Ordinary people going about ordinary lives. The homes were in various conditions. Some were old but well maintained, a few token trees. Others looked like junkyard offices surrounded by building material and scrapped cars. The only common theme seemed to be walls between every property—creating a warren of routes for possible escape. Or assault, Slaton corrected.
“There!” Salma exclaimed.
Slaton followed her gaze and saw a beaten residence fronted by a struggling acacia tree. The house looked fragmented, a charmless collection of mismatched rooms that seemed to have been added one at a time—what happened when an owner had no chance of a mortgage and simply added a room or a shed when times were good. The roof seemed vaguely crooked, and if there had ever been paint on the block walls it had faded to obscurity. Salma had assured him there was a garage, and while Slaton saw no sign of it from the street, a pair of rutted tracks to the right hinted at something in back. Every window in the house was covered with either blinds, sheets, or both, and paint peeled from the rotted fascia like sunburned skin.
Up and down the street Slaton saw a scattering of similar residences. The front yard next door resembled a municipal dump, and a house across the street was dominated by geriatric citrus trees and a tattered windsock. A stray dog ambled indifferently up the middle of the road.
Slaton saw no immediate threats. All the same, the MP5 was ready at his knee, two spare mags in his thigh pocket—an undeniable comfort when operating under thrice-removed confidences. He had decided to trust Ludmilla. She, in turn, was relying on her hairdresser. Now Salma had put everyone’s lives in the hands of a relative neither of them had met. It was a lot of transferred faith, but in that moment Slaton could think of no better option—which spoke volumes about how quickly the situation had degraded.
He gestured to the driveway that led around the home’s right side. “Is the garage around back?”
“Yes,” Salma replied. “Achmed keeps his work van inside, but he’ll understand. Should I call and ask him to move it out now?”
“No, all phones stay off. I want you to go to the door and make sure he’s home. If he is, ask him if he’s okay with us crashing in.”
“He will welcome us,” she said confidently.
Ludmilla pulled the car to a stop directly in front of the house. There was a time, not so long ago, when Slaton would have demanded that Salma leave her son in the back seat. From an operator’s perspective it would be the solid move, providing a degree of insurance. From a father’s point of view, unfortunately, it was an unfathomable ask.
Salma addressed her son, and Slaton caught one word: Achmed.
Slaton saw the boy smile for the first time. A great smile, deep and genuine. They got out of the car and walked to the front door hand in hand.
Slaton’s eyes shifted between three front windows. He saw no blinds being fingered back, no sign of lights being turned on or off. When the mother and son reached the front steps, he turned to Ludmilla and said, “She seems convinced her uncle is going to take us in.”
“He will.”
His eyes narrowed. “Because he had two sons killed in the war?”
“Actually … that was not truthful.”
He held her eyes with a level gaze.
“Achmed never married,” she admitted. “He has never had children.”
Slaton remained silent.
“In the
moment, there wasn’t time for argument.”
His eyes went back to the house, and he said in distant voice, “So, you manipulated me.”
“Yes. But I am telling you the truth now.”
“What about Salma? Was her husband really killed in the war?”
“Yes, although I myself only learned of it today. But I truly believe Achmed will help us.”
“Why?”
“He was always Salma’s favorite. He’s very close to her and Naji, even more so since her husband died. And there is something else you should know about Achmed—the reason, I am sure, she thought of him in the first place.”
Slaton felt as though he was waiting for a bad punch line.
“As it turns out, he is a businessman who makes his living … outside normal channels.”
“How far outside?”
She cocked her head and pursed her lips, a classically Slavic gesture. “Achmed is an importer of goods, but he has no official license.”
“You mean—”
“He is a smuggler.”
The front door opened. Salma and Naji went inside.
They both sat watching the door, which remained ajar, for a full five minutes. It seemed like hours. Slaton saw no movement anywhere. Not inside the house. Not on the driveway to the right.
He sensed Ludmilla shifting in her seat. The assuredness she’d displayed earlier was ebbing. With his eyes fixed outside, he said, “If we have to move, drive straight ahead. Hit it hard and take the first left.”
“Do you think something is wrong?”
He thought, We’re fugitives in Syria being hunted down by a bloody regime, not to mention Russian intelligence. Everything is wrong. He said, “No, we’re good. But having a plan costs us nothing.”
“Shouldn’t they have come out by now?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps we should go inside.”
“No.”
More shifting. Her fingers grasped rhythmically on the steering wheel. “Was it a mistake to come here?” she asked.
“Given what I was told, it seemed the best option at the time.”
“But now?”
He shot her a sideways glance. “It’s all right. Leave the worrying to me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m Russian,” she said.
Finally, Salma appeared with Naji at her side. His hand gripped her pocket as if connected by Velcro. A man appeared behind them. He was grizzled, perhaps fifty. Thick build, cheeks covered with a salt-and-pepper stubble.
Salma pointed toward the Hyundai. The man who had to be Achmed nodded. He pointed a bony finger at the car, then flicked it toward the side of the house.
“Okay,” Slaton said. “Let’s pull around back. But there is one more thing…” He briefly put his hand over the shift lever for emphasis. “If you ever lie to me again, you’re on your own.”
THIRTY-FIVE
Sultan remained stock-still in the shade of the great lalob tree. He cut a bizarre figure in his square-edged, head-to-toe yellow suit. His lack of movement was quite intentional. The falling afternoon sun was relentless, and the suit had become unbearably hot. He was glad he’d had the forethought to drink a bottle of water before donning it.
He checked the cheap digital watch he’d taped to the inside of his faceplate. Eight minutes had elapsed since the initial exposure. By the criteria he’d been given, there were two minutes to go.
He used the time to collate the observations he’d made so far. The younger of his two subjects had lasted less than a minute. The older almost three. But then, it was hard to say precisely when each had come in contact with the agent. He wasn’t sure how to assess the fate of the cows—for all his planning, that had never been a consideration. Curiously, one member of the herd was still standing—by some feral instinct it had scurried fifty meters away. Smart cow, he thought. He checked the tails of yarn he’d put high on the wooden pole. They were pointing, more or less, in the direction the cow had gone. He watched the beast carefully. It took another minute. The creature staggered sideways once, almost righted itself, then fell to the ground and began convulsing.
When the ten-minute point was reached—the planned exposure interval—Sultan lumbered back to the entrance of the hut. His first thought on arriving was that he was happy to be breathing fresh air in an over-pressurized suit—both victims were surrounded by a host of bodily fluids, expelled by the resulting spasms, and the smell had to be appalling.
He stood over the body of the older man, and with clinical detachment regarded the two syringes sticking out of his leg. Had they made any difference? he wondered. The man had drawn one breath near the end, a long gasp before succumbing. The agent had prevailed, of course, yet there might have been some slight mitigation from the atropine injection. Noted.
He turned a full circle, taking in the panorama around the building. He saw death in every quarter. Sultan squared his shoulders and eased into the shack with the utmost of caution. Despite having practiced, he found moving in the suit exceedingly awkward. It was like walking inside a giant balloon. Visibility through the faceplate was poor and the glass fogged constantly with moisture. He undertook each step cautiously, and was once more thankful for his preparations: on his first visit here, he’d carefully cleared the floor of any tripping hazards. Fall now and tear the suit, and he would be frantically jabbing needles into his own thigh.
He referenced the watch and saw that he’d been in the suit for twenty-one minutes. He needed to pick up the pace. His air supply was limited, and there was still a great deal to be done. Sweating profusely, he cursed the herders for not showing up closer to nightfall. Unfortunately, certain parts of the equation had always been out of his control. In truth, he was surprised anyone had gotten here so quickly—he’d always reckoned that tomorrow was more likely. He put it down to the despondency of the local situation.
Three days ago, an associate, a Sudanese he’d paid handsomely, had made a trip on Sultan’s behalf to Kuma, a village twenty miles to the west. At a gathering place for local herders, he’d spread word of this outpost to a half dozen of the baqqara, painting it as a waypoint to ever-greener pastures. Sultan had no doubt the story would circulate, and that, given the severity of the drought, someone would be drawn east. The only questions were how long it would take and how many would come. The journey from Kuma, he’d reckoned, would take at least two days, so he’d been mildly surprised when, soon after pulling the Toyota into the nearby valley, he’d seen a small herd materialize. They headed straight for the compound, and by the time Sultan had finished unloading he knew his scheme had worked. Now he had to finish the job.
He reached the back of the room and paused near the table holding the equipment. The most prominent components were two canisters. One resembled a miniature scuba tank, while the other was thinner, like a small fire extinguisher. Both remained in place on the table, connected by a minor network of silver tubes and regulators. On top of it all was the dispersal nozzle, which looked like a small inverted showerhead. He had activated the system from fifty yards away using a transmitter modified from a garage door opener. He’d considered using a motion-activated initiator, but had ruled the idea out, not wanting some curious jackal to set things off prematurely.
On appearances, the system seemed to have performed well. If anything, the efficacy of the binary mix was more lethal than anticipated. A check of the pressure gauge confirmed that the larger canister had fully depressurized. The smaller cylinder didn’t have a gauge, so leaving the flexible hose attached, he lifted it from its stand and gave the container a shake. He felt a slight sloshing inside. Eighty percent usage, he guessed, of the aerosolizing mixture.
It occurred to him that he might have brought a scale to get a more precise measurement. Sultan discarded the idea just as quickly. He already had enough to keep track of. Simplify wherever possible. By this same mantra, he’d already decided against trying to take pictures. Manipulatin
g a camera in the heavy gloves would be all but impossible, and mounting a GoPro inside his helmet seemed problematic given the expected fogging. It hardly mattered. Others would take pictures soon enough.
Back outside, he walked past the big tree and down a gentle embankment to a familiar stand of brush. The two large duffels were right where he’d left them. He hauled them into the building, straining in the cumbersome suit. After catching his breath, he went straight to work.
From the first duffel he extracted a biohazard suit identical to the one he was wearing. He’d already removed it from its plastic shipping bag to insert what the maid had provided. He dragged the suit across the dirt floor, and for good measure wiped its rubbery exterior across the tabletop where the canisters were set up. He crushed the suit into a ball, returned it to the duffel, and extracted second. This he gave the same treatment. From the other duffel he removed two pairs of boots—twins to the oversized set he was wearing. He swept them back and forth across the shack’s dirt floor. Last to be contaminated were a dozen foot-long strips of ChemTape. With one last look at the scene, Sultan was satisfied. Everything went back into the duffels, and gripping one in each hand, he set out for the staging area.
The heat was interminable; he’d now been wearing the suit for over thirty minutes. His bad foot ached by the time he reached his destination, a prominent rock outcropping a quarter mile downwind from his truck. He opened the duffels and extracted the contaminated suits, boots, and ChemTape, positioning all of it haphazardly around the rocky enclave. The rest of the scene was already in place, strewn randomly nearby. One pair of scissors, two partial rolls of the special tape, a few rags, and a collection of empty food wrappers and water bottles. Near the largest rock were two pump spray containers of decontamination solution, both half empty. He’d spent ten minutes earlier misting the surrounding dirt like a groundskeeper killing weeds. After one last look, he decided to scuff the ground a bit more.
